


like a bullet in the back

by belovedmuerto



Series: in a cabin in the woods [5]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Domesticity, Fluff, M/M, a couple of alpacas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 22:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12663039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedmuerto/pseuds/belovedmuerto
Summary: Steve thinks they should get alpacas. Bucky thinks he's nuts.





	like a bullet in the back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wearing_tearing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearing_tearing/gifts).



> I dunno, I just wanted something fluffy and domestic.

“So I was thinking maybe we could get a couple of alpacas.”

He can feel it when Bucky looks up at him from the other end of the sofa. He can nearly always feel when Bucky’s gaze is on him; but then again, he’s pretty sure Bucky can feel it when he stares, too. 

“What.”

“Alpacas. Their wool makes amazing yarn; it’s so soft. I could do more spinning. It’s very soothing. I could sell some of it, maybe? I dunno.”

“And that’s a reason to get a couple?” To say Bucky sounds skeptical would be a gross understatement.

“I mean. Maybe?”

“Are the cats and dogs and chickens not enough, Steven?”

Steve shrugs. He glances over at Bucky, and then puts his eyes back on his knitting. Not that he actually needs to be watching his hands to get the stitches right.

“You’d never know you didn’t even see a live chicken until the forties, pal.”

“I don’t hear you complaining about the fresh eggs, Buck.”

“Hey. I ain’t complainin’. I’m just saying you’ve gone full native, city boy.”

“Shaddup.”

With a snort, Bucky does.

A few rows later, Steve looks up again. Bucky’s got his nose back in his book, but Steve knows he’s paying attention to him. He can feel it. “So what do you think?”

Bucky doesn’t miss a beat. He doesn’t even look up from his book. “I think you’re nuts, Stevie.”

Steve huffs, vaguely annoyed, mostly amused. “I know that, I mean about the alpacas.”

Bucky looks up slowly. “I think you’re nuts, Stevie,” he repeats. Slowly. He’s grinning too, like the complete shit that he is.

“See if you get anything made for you ever again. Ever. Ever ever.”

“Uh huh. And who are you making that for right now?”

Steve doesn’t even pause this time, because it’s all muscle memory at this point, he just looks up at Bucky. Sticks his tongue out at him. “Natasha.”

“Liar.”

“Nope.” Steve holds up his work, a fairly simple thing that might be a cowl when finished, in a really deep green, with fuzzy soft yarn.

Bucky pouts.

“I’ll make you a sweater with the first batch of yarn from the alpacas. Promise.”

“Lies. You’ll make yourself something with the first batch.”

Steve smiles. “I’ll make us both something.”

“Uh huh,” Bucky agrees, sounding like he doesn’t believe Steve at all. 

“Is that a yes?”

“Nope.”

It’s Steve’s turn to pout, but he knows he’s put the thought in Bucky’s head now. And that Bucky will give it serious consideration before he truly decides one way or the other. 

He doesn’t want to farm, not really. But they definitely have the land to support a small herd of alpacas, at least. Very small. Maybe four, at most. Plenty of room for them to wander, if not any actual pastures set up. And from what Steve has learned, the alpacas and the chickens both will benefit from having the other around. 

And so would the humans.

He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him, as he concentrates on the feel of the yarn and the movement of the needles in his hands.

“What?” he asks, when he finishes his row. He puts his hands down and looks at Bucky.

“C’mere,” Bucky says. Orders, almost.

“Why?”

“C’mere,” Bucky repeats. He’s smiling now, a little sly. Steve already knows what he wants.

Steve raises one brow at him.

Bucky rolls his eyes and literally pats his thighs. With both hands. “Come down here and get on me, Stevie.”

Steve laughs. “Oh my god, you sure do know how to sweet talk a fella.”

Bucky snorts and twists a little on the couch, draping one arm over the back, legs spread wide in obvious invitation. His grin is lascivious. 

Steve loves him so much it’s ridiculous, sometimes.

“I don’t gotta sweet talk you, doll. You’ve been a sure thing since the thirties.”

“Oh my god,” Steve repeats. “You asshole.”

But he’s laughing, as he puts his knitting in the incredibly dorky little stand he keeps next to the couch for just such things. His mother had had something just like it, and when he’d found it in the Goodwill last year he hadn’t been able to resist. It’s incredibly useful.

He’s laughing as he stands up and pulls his t-shirt over his head. Bucky is grinning at him, watching him with soft eyes.

“Easy,” Bucky murmurs.

“Sleazy,” Steve retorts, settling himself into the space between Bucky’s legs.

“Cheesy,” Bucky replies, putting his arms around Steve, pulling him close, pressing their lips together.

There’s no more rhyming after that, although there is plenty of laughter.

\----

Steve comes back from his run to a quiet house. This is not an unusual occurrence, Bucky rarely gets up at any time Steve would consider ‘early’. Even the dogs aren’t up and about yet, though, which is slightly more rare. The cats blink at him sleepily from their various perches, watching him pass.

He goes to the kitchen and starts the coffee, glad as always that he’d set it up the night before. Bucky always says to leave it til morning, and Steve always sets it up anyway, and he’s always glad when he doesn’t have to fool with it after his run. 

It just makes sense, and they both know it. He’s pretty sure that Bucky only tells him to leave it out of habit at this point. Bucky knows as well as Steve that Steve won’t do that, though, and he always appreciates that the coffee is ready and waiting for him when he gets up in the morning.

It’s a habit, a routine. One they’d developed together. Steve smiles to himself while he waits for the coffee to brew, thinking about those little things. Their routines. The things they do together.

He likes that they have routines. He loves it, in fact.

It is, perhaps, a small thing to be happy about, and maybe even a bit boring. But he is happy. Incandescent, if he’s being particularly honest with himself. He’s so happy most of the time that he doesn’t quite know what to do with it.

Steve drinks his first cup of coffee leaning against the counter with one of the cats winding around his legs, licking the sweat off his shin, and then he wanders back to their bedroom. He drinks his coffee while he thinks about happiness. About how it had snuck up on him, when he’d come here to find Bucky, when they’d talked all those times, talked and talked and talked and decided between them to be together. To really be together, completely.

It’s a decision he makes every day, to stay, to love Bucky. It’s a decision they both make.

He never thought he’d get that chance, to make that choice. To be happy. He never thought he’d be able to stop fighting long enough to find it. He never thought he’d be capable of giving up the fight.

But in the end, it had been easy. It took him a while to realize just how easy it was, but when it hit him, it was like a light had gone on. It was the fight or Bucky, and he chose Bucky. It was death--because he didn’t kid himself that he’d die fighting if he kept at it-- or Bucky. He chose Bucky. He will keep choosing Bucky, every single day he has.

Even if he sometimes goes back to the fight, to help his friends, all he wants when he’s with them is to come home. He wants to be here, with Bucky. He wants to make art, and raise chickens, and love Bucky, and be happy.

It’s a heady feeling, realizing that he gets to have that.

Bucky is more or less in the same position that he was in when Steve had left his side earlier that morning. Steve sits on the side of the bed and Bucky grumbles from under the covers.

“What?” Steve asks, twisting around to look at the lump of Bucky.

“No gross sweaty Steves in the bed,” Bucky says.

“Bed’s already kinda sweaty, Buck,” Steve points out. Maybe it’s not in this particular moment, but they’ve both been sweaty and other things in the bed before.

“Sex sweat doesn’t count,” Bucky mumbles into his pillow. “Go shower, you smell.”

“Why do I put up with you?” Steve asks as he unties his sneakers and pulls them off.

“Cuz I’m a good lay,” Bucky replies. 

Steve can hear his smile in his voice, and he twists around again to smile down at Bucky, even though he can’t actually see Bucky’s eyes, just a sliver of the top of his head.

“Eh, you’re alright, Barnes.”

“Not what you said last night,” Bucky mumbles back.

Steve laughs, because it’s true. He takes off his socks as well, and then pulls his shirt over his head. He hears the little noise that Bucky makes, and glances over his shoulder again. Bucky’s eyes watch him, only the top of his head above the covers. He must’ve moved them so he could see Steve. Steve can see the way his eyes are crinkled in a smile.

Steve gives him a bit of a show, standing slowly, and bending over even more slowly, taking his shorts and underwear off with a little wriggle of his hips.

“Tease,” Bucky mumbles. Steve glances over his shoulder again, gives another little swing of his hips, and saunters into the bathroom, chuckling the whole way. Because he can. Because he’s happy. Content. In love.

Steve showers quickly, washing away the sweat of his workout, letting the hot water soothe his muscles. He dries off and runs the towel over his hair, and drops it on the floor of the bathroom before he goes back into their room.

“Better pick up that goddamn towel, Steve,” Bucky grumbles as Steve climbs into the bed next to him, not bothering to put on any clothes.

Steve shimmies across the bed and tucks himself under Bucky’s chin, against Bucky’s body. He presses his nose against Bucky’s throat, breathing him in, and wraps himself around Bucky. Bucky welcomes him, wrapping around him in turn. They hold each other tight, and Steve sighs. He can feel the rumble of Bucky’s answering breath in his chest where they’re pressed together, as close as possible.

“Good morning,” Bucky murmurs in his ear. 

“Mmm,” Steve agrees.

“You’re snuggly this morning,” Bucky adds. He doesn’t seem displeased by this, the way he’s got his arms tight around Steve, one of them stroking slow up and down Steve’s back.

Steve tucks one hand in the waistband of Bucky’s boxer briefs, against the warm skin of his backside.

“Are you happy?” Steve asks, against the skin of Bucky’s neck.

“Hmm?”

Steve shifts a little, so he can speak a bit more clearly. “Are you happy?”

Bucky starts to speak, and then stops again. After a moment, he says simply, “Yes.”

“Me, too.” 

“Good,” Bucky agrees.

“Good,” Steve repeats.

They stay like that for a while, wrapped up in each other in their bed, in their room, in their house. The little cabin is quiet around them. Steve drifts a little, not asleep but not quite entirely awake, either. Bucky sighs into his hair, shifting a little and asking him something that doesn’t register.

Steve rouses himself after a moment. “Hmm?”

“Do you wanna fool around?”

Steve thinks about that for a bit. His thoughts are slow, drowsy. This is nice, just holding Bucky and being held, warm and quiet.

“No,” he says, eventually.

Bucky hums into his hair. 

“‘Zat okay?”

Bucky squeezes him tighter, and Steve’s vague worries about rejecting Bucky melt away. “Yeah, it’s fine, I was just checking.”

“Okay.”

They are both quiet again, for a while. One of the dogs barks, somewhere in the house, but it’s not a distressed bark, so they don’t go on alert.

“Is this what we’re doing today?” Bucky asks, some time later. He sounds drowsy, and Steve thinks that he’s been sort of sleeping, too.

“For now,” Steve murmurs. “You got plans, Buck?”

Bucky gives a half shrug, “Yeah, I guess.”

“What’re you doing?”

“I gotta go out in the woods a while. Look at wood. Chop stuff.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“You wanna come with me?”

Steve shakes his head, rubbing his nose against Bucky’s throat in the process. “Do you want me to?”

“You don’t hafta. I’m just gonna be stomping around with an axe.”

“Ok. I was gonna work some on that painting. Maybe finish Natasha’s cowl. Make some dinner.”

“Ok.” Bucky shifts and resettles again. “We should get moving soon.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Bucky chuckles. “You are not making it easy for me to get out of bed, Steve.”

“We _could_ just stay here. Do stuff tomorrow.”

“Whoever it is out there that thinks _you_ are the good influence in this relationship is an idiot.”

“No one thinks I’m the good influence, Buck.”

“Not anyone who’s known you for more than five minutes, anyway.”

Steve smiles against Bucky’s neck. “Good thing I got you to keep me in line, huh?”

“Been doin’ it my whole damn life,” Bucky mutters, but he only sounds pretend put-out.

“Where would I be without you?” Steve asks, and then, “Don’t answer that.”

Because the answer to that is not a happy one.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Bucky replies.

They settle back into silence. One of the dogs comes into the room and hops up onto the bed, Hooch from the way the bed moves under him. He circles a couple of times behind Steve and then settles down.

Steve laughs a little. “Now I really don’t wanna get out of bed.”

“I’m surprised you’re not covered in cats, honestly.”

As though the mere mention of them had summoned them, one of the cats jumps up onto the bed as well, meows at them huffily, and settles down.

“Ok, that’s it.”

“What?” Steve shifts while Bucky extricates himself from the tangle of limbs before the cat can get settled and sits up, stretching his arms over his head.

“I better get moving,” he says.

Steve watches him and doesn’t say anything. Bucky doesn’t move for another moment, and Steve reaches up to trail his fingers down Bucky’s spine. Bucky glances over his shoulder at him, and Steve smiles.

“You’re a menace,” Bucky says, leaning over to kiss Steve thoroughly, and pulling away slowly, reluctantly. “Is the coffee on? You taste like coffee.”

“Yeah, it should still be on.”

Bucky kisses him again, and then gets up.

Steve starfishes in the bed as best he can, with the dog behind him, and the cat down by his feet. He’s not ready to get up, not yet. So he doesn’t. He’s already been up, gone for his run, had a cup of coffee. He’s missing good light to paint by, but he’s ok with that. He’s ok with this, with just laying in bed, surrounded by animals and the mingled smells of himself and Bucky, being happy.

Bucky returns a few minutes later with a cup of coffee in his hand, which he refuses to share with Steve, even when Steve makes grabby hands for it. 

Soon enough, Bucky is dressed for spending time in the woods, long-sleeved henley, jeans and his most broken-in pair of work boots, Dodgers hat on his head.

“I have my phone,” he says, because neither of them ever goes far from the other without a phone. They’re safe here, but they’re also cautious.

Steve is still in bed, gloriously naked and making sure Bucky knows it.

Bucky glares down at him, kisses him soundly, and flips him off as he leaves. Steve laughs as he watches him go. 

He waits for a few minutes after he hears the screen door slam, and then grabs his phone.

 

A few minutes later, his phone chimes. 

Steve smiles, and lets himself drift again, thoughts floating from one thing to the next.

\----

He’s drawn out of his art trance by the sound of the screen door slamming. Steve blinks and looks around his studio. Judging by the light, it’s late afternoon already, and he can smell the chicken he’s got in the slow cooker downstairs. He thanks his lucky stars that he’d thought to set the slow cooker and the rice cooker--ain’t modern conveniences grand?--before coming upstairs earlier.

Across the room, Hooch lifts his head and gives a low woof before settling down again. He’s never been one to be concerned with people coming and going, though. 

Downstairs, he can hear Daisy and Sweetpea greeting Bucky.

“Honey, I’m home!” floats up the stairs, and Steve smiles, stretching out as he stands, examining his progress for the day.

He decides he’s in a pretty good spot, despite missing most of the good light of the day, and covers the painting before he heads downstairs. Hooch only reluctantly gets up to follow, when he whistles from the stairs.

Bucky is in the kitchen, wiping himself down with his own shirt and smelling the chicken, holding the crock pot cover in his left hand. The look on his face is one of near bliss as he inhales. For a moment, Steve just stops in the door of the kitchen and watches him. He’s sweaty from trekking through the woods for most of the day, and he’s still got the tan he’d developed over the summer, skin golden and healthy.

Steve is struck once again by just how much he loves this man, just how happy he is that they get to be together, that Bucky chooses him every day just like he chooses Bucky.

He can feel himself flushing with it.

Which is when Bucky notices him (or really, acknowledges that he’s there, because Steve doesn’t kid himself that Buck hadn’t been aware as he’d moved through the house), and the smirk that crosses his face is Steve’s favorite. It takes years off Bucky’s face, makes him look like he did way back when, at once pleased as hell and a little embarrassed, to see the way Steve is looking at him.

“I am shocked and awed that you actually remembered to put dinner together, Stevie,” he says.

“Yuck it up, jerk,” Steve replies, flipping him off as he goes to get plates out of the cupboard.

“You programmed all this as soon as I walked out the door this morning, didn’t you?” Bucky continues, still smirking, smug in his certainty that he’s right.

“Pretty much,” Steve admits readily. With his penchant for getting lost in art and completely forgetting the outside world for hours or sometimes days at a time, he’s pretty proud of himself that he’d remembered that much before he’d wandered off to his studio this morning. Also, pleased that both the rice cooker and the crock pot have programmable timers. “I was gonna put a couple of bags of frozen broccoli in the microwave if you want some of that, too?”

“Cheese sauce?”

“The sauce with the chicken is mostly cheese, Buck, we can just use that.”

“Works for me.” Bucky accepts the plate that Steve hands him, drops his sweaty shirt on the floor, and starts serving himself rice and chicken.

Steve puts the other plate on the counter, gets the broccoli out of the freezer, and sticks it in the microwave to steam.

Seriously, he kind of loves the future sometimes. (Well, now that he’s here, with Bucky, he loves it pretty much all the time.)

Once the broccoli is finished and divided up between them, Steve joins Bucky at their little kitchen table and tucks into his food. Their knees knock together under the tiny table, and it is quiet except for the vague noises Bucky keeps making over his food. He seems well pleased with it. Steve has to remind himself to eat and not just watch him.

Bucky finishes eating first, and he sits back with a contented sigh, watching as Steve continues to work his way through his own meal. It’s a change from the way things used to be, when Bucky would only ever eat half of whatever food he had, insisting that he wasn’t that hungry and that Steve should finish it instead.

Steve had always known that’s what he was doing. And more often than not, he’d let it happen. He had his pride, but that only went so far, sometimes. Especially when he was starving.

Bucky sits and watches as Steve eats, and Steve watches him while he’s being watched.

“How’s your back?” he asks, as he’s finishing up. Bucky’s been a little fidgety the way he gets when his back is bothering him. Which it does sometimes, still. Despite the new arm and how much lighter it is than the old one, he’s had too much of his insides rearranged around the metal to ever really fully recover, or be entirely 100% pain-free. He’s admitted as much before, and he’s talked about what still bothers him, given Steve some ideas of what to look out for and how to help, but he doesn’t like to talk about it very much these days. And he’s learned a lot of ways to take care of himself, to minimize the ache of it.

Steve has that same brief flash of wishing he could burn Hydra to the ground that he always has, when he notices that Bucky is uncomfortable, but he pushes it away because he’s otherwise too happy, and he doesn’t want to sour his mood.

Bucky shrugs his question away. “’M’fine, Stevie.”

“Liar.”

Bucky shrugs again, but he’s rotating his shoulder like it’s bugging him, and then rolling his neck around.

“Want a massage?”

Bucky smirks at him. “You offering somethin’, pal?”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, dumbass. A massage. What I just said. It’ll help, maybe you’ll get a decent night’s sleep. I know you haven’t been sleeping well the past couple of weeks. Has your back been bugging you all this time?”

“I’m—“ Bucky cuts himself off at the glare Steve is giving him. “Oh lord, you’re putting on the Captain face. Alright, you can give me a massage, jeez Rogers.”

Steve glares a little more before he relents. “I am going to fucking take care of you and you will like it, goddammit.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“Oh fuck off, Buck.” Steve gets up and grabs both of their plates. He holds Bucky’s out til he puts his silverware on it, and then takes them to the sink to rinse. He’ll wash up later. Or in the morning. They’ve mostly demolished all of the food that he’d made, but there’s enough for maybe a snack for one of them at some point, so he scrapes it all into a container and sticks it in the fridge. When he turns back, Bucky’s still sitting at the table, leaned back in his chair and just smiling at him, soft and tender.

“Go take a shower,” Steve tells him. “Really hot one, and then I’ll work on your back. No gross sweaty Buckys in the bed.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to glare, but he gets up and heads towards the bathroom, only grumbling under his breath a little (in Russian, as if Steve doesn’t still get the gist of what he’s saying).

Steve ends up doing the dishes while Bucky is in the shower, and then goes to dig out the massage oil that he keeps for when they do this when he hears the shower shut off.

Bucky is clearly already fading towards sleep already when he comes out of the bathroom and puts on a pair of boxer briefs. His hair is dripping wet on his shoulders, and he sort of slouches towards the bed. He flops down on his side of the bed and spreads himself out as wide as possible.

Steve shakes his head, amused and almost overwhelmed by sheer affection. He knows that Bucky’s being ornery and obnoxious on purpose, but he also knows that he makes a big deal of only huffily accepting Steve taking care of him because it makes him so happy and he’s still a little embarrassed by it.

“C’mon, on your back,” he instructs, nudging at Bucky’s hip. Bucky makes a huge deal out of turning over and sort of arranging himself at the edge of the bed while Steve pours a tiny little bit of the oil into his hand to let it warm up a little. (He’d learned his lesson that you really only need the tiniest bit of oil the first time they’d done this, when Bucky had ended up greasy and shiny with it, and Steve hadn’t been able to get a grip on any of his muscles to even manipulate them. In retrospect, it was hilarious. At the time, it had been insanely frustrating for both of them, and they’d given up and had sex instead, which hadn’t done a thing to help Bucky’s back. Steve’s second attempt, the next morning, after Bucky had showered off the oil (and lube) had worked much better.)

Bucky finally settles down a little, and Steve sees the little lines around his eyes ease, just a bit, as he relaxes into the bed and gives himself over. Finally, finally he’s letting Steve do some of the heavy lifting of taking care of him, even if only for a little while. Even if only until tomorrow morning.

Steve starts with his shoulder, and his right arm. He has to be careful around Bucky’s left arm, especially on his front, because of the amount of metal grafted onto his ribs, another thing they’d learned the hard way. But Bucky gets tight in the shoulder, and as long as Steve is gentle and doesn’t use too much pressure, he can work some of those knots out. 

He had tried to give Bucky a face massage. Once.

It had not gone well.

He doesn’t do that now, but he does slide his fingers into Bucky’s hair, and grip tight for just a moment before releasing, and rubbing his scalp.

“Gonna make my hair greasy, Steve,” Bucky mumbles, but he’s pressing his head into Steve’s fingers as he speaks, stretching like one of the cats. 

“Mmm,” is all Steve says in response. “Time to turn over.”

Bucky obeys easily enough, and Steve straddles him and sits on his ass, grabs the oil to warm a bit more in his hand before he starts on Bucky’s back.

“Want me to do your legs tonight, too?”

Bucky gives a shrug, and wriggles a little. “Legs’re fine. Back hurts.”

He sounds more than half asleep already; it’s probably the only reason he’s admitting that his back is even bothering him. Steve considers the massage a success, and he’s barely even started. 

He takes his time, working on Bucky’s back. 

When Bucky had first been back, after all that… stuff. With Hydra. When Steve had figured out that part of why he held himself so stiff all the time, so careful, was because he was aching, he’d gone to one of the massage therapists in the building (there was a whole staff, trained in just about every type of massage that could possibly exist, because, as Tony had explained, superheroes are like the ultimate athletes, and if athletes get all kinds of massage work done, so should superheroes. It made as much sense at the time as anything Tony said.) Steve had gone and spoken to them and asked about giving someone a massage. How to do it, basically.

She’d looked at him with a critical eye and asked bluntly, “Is this a sex thing?”

Steve had gone tomato red and stammered for a full two minutes before he was able to speak clearly. “No. It’s. To help. My friend. He aches. I think?”

Now, sometimes, it’s a sex thing, but that’s between him and Bucky. At the time, he really had only wanted help so he could try and help Bucky feel better.

After she’d glared at him critically for a few more minutes, she’d seemed to accept what he said as truth, and she’d told him what to do. To be aware of where muscles start and end, and to feel for the tightness and the knots, to work with the body. And most importantly, to bring intention to it. If you don’t want to help the person you’re working on, it’ll be a shitty massage.

Steve turns all of his intention on Bucky now, working slowly down his back and up again, listening closely to the little sounds he makes when Steve hits a good spot, or a bad one, checking in every so often to make sure he’s doing what he means to do: make Bucky feel better. 

By the time he’s thoroughly wrung every knot that he can fine out of Bucky’s back, Bucky is all but snoring into the pillow, and there is definitely drool involved. His hair has more or less dried, a cloud around his head, across his face, and his whole body has gone limp under Steve’s hands. Steve sits back, more or less on his thighs, and leaves his hands on Bucky’s back for a moment.

“Do you want me to try that still point thing again?” Steve asks. He has basically turned Bucky into a boneless heap on the bed, still beneath his hands but for the rise and fall of his back with his deep, even breaths, and Steve is really pretty proud of himself for that. It makes him feel useful, something he will grudgingly admit he still needs, and he’s glad that Bucky seems to have realized that.

Bucky mumbles something into the pillow he’s got his face smashed into now.

“What?”

He lifts his head a bit, after a very long pause. “I said, only if you have no plans on getting some tonight.”

Steve laughs. “I think I’ll survive.”

“Then go for it.”

He leans over and presses a firm kiss between his shoulders, before getting up and nudging at Bucky’s hip to get him to turn over on his back again. Bucky grumbles, but he does it, slowly. Steve is once again floored by just how much he loves this man. Even when he’s pretending to be put out by Steve caring for him. It must show on his face, because Bucky reaches out for him and tangles their fingers together.

“Sap,” he murmurs.

“Love you,” Steve replies.

Bucky smiles up at him, squeezes his hand. 

“Do you want to get under the covers first? If this works you’ll probably fall asleep.”

Bucky stretches a bit, and then rolls around on the bed so Steve can pull the covers down and he can get under them.

“So much help,” Steve chides, laughing.

When they’ve both settled down again, Steve cradles Bucky’s head in his hands, fingers on the back of his neck, where his skull and his spine meet. For a moment, he leans over so their foreheads are pressed together, and Bucky must understand the gesture, because he murmurs, “Thanks, Stevie.”

Steve presses another kiss to Bucky’s forehead, and then settles in to concentrate on feeling the slow, soft pulse he’s looking for. Eventually, he finds it, slowly distinguishing it from the pulse of blood through his body, moving with that pulse, slowing it increment by increment, until he’s able to stop it, just for a bare few moments.

Bucky starts snoring, about then. His whole body has gone entirely limp. He’s said that it feels like Steve has hit the reset button on his brain, on his whole body. Steve’s not very good at this, so he’s only managed to do it a few times, but it feels like an immense victory every time, when he sees Bucky relax fully and completely like this, when he makes those tiny little snores that mean he is really deeply asleep.

Steve holds his head in his hands for a few moments more, just savoring him. Then he lets go, gentle so as not to jostle Bucky or wake him, tucks the covers a bit more around him, and leaves him to sleep.

He sits in the chair in the corner of the room and draws him for a while, goes and finishes cleaning up the kitchen from their dinner, sets the dishwasher running, sets up the coffee for the morning, reads for a while, and then goes to bed himself.

Bucky turns to him as soon as he’s settled in bed and wraps around him, still dead to the world. Steve curls up with him and is soon asleep.

\----

The next few days pass in a similar manner. Bucky disappears into the woods around mid-morning, comes back around dinner time. Steve manages to have dinner waiting for him every night, and he’s really not sure how, but he doesn’t question it.

Maybe it’s because he knows that Bucky is doing something for him, because he’d asked, and he wants to do whatever he can to show how grateful he is. A couple more times, he convinces Bucky to let him rub his back, although never one quite so thorough as the one he’d given him the first night. Mostly he just tries to keep his shoulders loose, his neck. After that first night, Bucky makes sure he stretches thoroughly when he gets home, and his back doesn’t seem to bug him as much.

They don’t talk about what Bucky’s doing.

They continue not to talk about it when Bucky starts carrying what look like posts out of the woods by the armful. He dumps them in a pile while Steve watches from the porch, and while he’s surveying them, he hollers, “Hey Stevie!”

“Yeah?”

“Bring me a drink, wouldja?”

“What do you want?”

“We got any of that iced tea left?”

“I think so.” Steve ducks into the house to pour Bucky a glass of iced tea, and then walks it out to him.

“Whatcha building?” he asks, as he hands the glass to Bucky.

Bucky turns and gives him a flat look. “A doghouse.”

They both know Bucky’s not building a doghouse.

“Oh,” Steve replies. “For the dogs who all sleep in the house, you mean?”

“Yep, for those dogs.” Bucky doesn’t crack, although Steve more than half expects him to. “Thanks for the tea, babe.”

Bucky only calls him babe when he’s really fucking with him, so Steve smirks at him and gives him a peck on the cheek. “Anytime, doll.”

\----

“You know, I can see what you’re doing,” Steve calls from the porch. He’s sitting on the stairs, surrounded by dogs, with one of the cats sitting on his shoulder.

Bucky is digging post holes. He straightens up and wipes his brow and looks at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, pal.”

\----

Steve tries again the next day, walking down to the far side of what is quickly shaping into a paddock at the far side of their yard with a sandwich and a bottle of coke for Bucky (they buy the stuff imported from Mexico, because it tastes closer to real to them).

“Whatcha workin’ on, Buck?”

Bucky takes the sandwich and takes a huge bite. Looks Steve dead in the eye. “A boat.”

Steve laughs. “We live like two hours from the nearest water, Buck.”

Bucky snatches the coke from him.

\----

“What’s this, Buck?”

“A pool.”

\----

“It’s a cabin, dumbass.”

Steve just looks from the cabin they live in back to Bucky.

“It’s a tinier cabin. For the mice.”

\----

“A doghouse.”

“You already said that one. And the dogs live in our house.”

“Well, yeah, because they have no choice. Now they can decide where they want to live.”

“Pretty sure they’re gonna wanna live where the food and blankets are.”

“That’s up to them.”

“You said it was a boat, the other day.”

Bucky gives him a scandalized look. “The dogs are afraid of water, Stevie.”

“We live four hours from the ocean, Buck.”

Bucky just shrugs at him and goes back to work. Somehow, he hasn’t cracked once. Steve has to give it to him for that. 

\----

Bucky asks him to help, the next day, and together they put up a little lean-to shed in one corner of the pasture.

“What’s this?” Steve asks, when they’re about finished.

“Chicken mansion.” He’s not even really trying anymore.

Steve looks over towards the chicken coop and back at Bucky, who just glares at him.

Steve gives him his widest, most shit-eating grin. “I’ll go start dinner.”

\----

He’s not really exactly sure what to expect, once the fence is complete, and the little lean-to is up and filled with hay. For a few weeks, they’re both empty, except for the chickens roaming around, since Bucky had wrapped the fence around their coop. 

It’s long enough to lull Steve into something close to forgetting why Bucky had put the fence up in the first place. He knows that Bucky’s probably doing this on purpose, but it still works. He gets used to the empty(ish) pasture, going around it every morning on his run, until it’s just there. It’s another part of their home, the empty paddock.

Until one morning, it’s not empty anymore. 

Steve stretches a bit on the porch, rolls his shoulders to loosen up before his run, and heads down the steps and into an easy jog. 

He comes to a stop at the paddock, staring, mouth a little agape. Steve blinks a few times, rapidly, and then stares some more. He glances back at the house, and it’s still and quiet like he’d expected; he’s sure that the animals are all still asleep, snugged up in bed with Bucky or on their own beds, strewn around the room. 

There are definitely two alpacas in the field, though.

When had Bucky had the time to go get them?

 

_Where_ had he gotten them from?

_HOW?!_

Steve approaches the fences, and stands there, staring at the alpacas for what feels like a long time. They ignore him, picking at the grass in the early morning light.

It’s probably only a few minutes, though, before Bucky joins him, standing at his side. Reminding Steve without words, without a sound that he’s a retired assassin, probably the best assassin in the word for all that he is retired. It doesn’t matter how he’d gotten the alpacas here, it just matters that he’d done it, and he’d done it without Steve having any idea that he was bringing them. He must’ve gotten up in the middle of the night or something; Steve hadn’t even woken up when he’d left the bed.

“They’re pretty, huh?” Bucky says, after a few minutes. He nudges Steve’s shoulder with his own.

Steve just nods, because he can’t really speak yet. He’s too choked up.

He’d known that Bucky was going to get him alpacas, but he’s still utterly touched by it. Bucky got him alpacas. Just because. Because Bucky loves him.

Bucky slips his arm around Steve’s waist, and Steve leans into him.

“Thanks,” Steve says eventually, when he can speak again. His voice comes out hoarse, and he leans his head on Bucky’s shoulder.

The alpacas ignore both of them.

Bucky shifts and presses a kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “I expect a really good Christmas present this year.”

Steve chuckles. If it comes out a little watery, neither of them brings it up. 

Eventually, Steve picks his head up and looks at Bucky. Bucky, who bought him alpacas. Bucky, who came out here at the crack of dawn to see Steve’s reaction to them. Bucky, who loves him.

There’s a pile of wood, next to the lean to.

“What are you gonna make with that?” 

Bucky smiles, still watching the alpacas. “A barn.”

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to wearing_tearing for the silliness that is Steve asking Bucky what he's building. And also for listening to me whine about writing all the time. <3


End file.
